Urban Songwriter Competition

NOISE hooks up with some big music names in a nation-wide search for the best urban song-writing talent.

Type

Competition

Year

2006

As part of a series of exclusively branded projects that made up the 2006 Festival, NOISE hooks up with some big music names in a nation-wide search for the best urban song-writing talent. Partners include Yamaha, makers of some of the world’s finest musical gear; Deal Real Records, a highly respected underground label on the UK Urban music scene and the country’s top radio station for showcasing new Urban music talent, BBC 1Xtra.

The brief is simple – upload your self-penned Hip-Hop, Soul, Reggae, Funk or R&B track to NOISEfestival.com. As long as you are unsigned and under 25 you are in with a chance to be heard by some of the biggest names on the Urban Music scene, including BBC R1 DJ’s Nihal and Ras Kwame, and Deal Real CEO Tony Tagoe.

Prizes

A Yamaha Home Recording Studio worth over £900, studio time at the Dairy Studios with a top UK producer and media exposure - all designed to help the competition winners to write, perform, and develop their talent further.

In October 2006, as part of the massive programme of events that make up the very first NOISE Festival the finalists chosen from over 300 submissions, Tsana, TJ, Cakes and Rhythm n Grime, perform live at Deal Real Records HQ on Carnaby Street in London.

BBC Radio 1 DJ Nihal and Deal Real Records Tony Tagoe, choose Rhythm n Grime as the winners. The winning track, 'I Will Survive' produced by beat master Pyper, it features the stunning vocals of Manchester’s I-Deal and MC Meistro. The Rhythm n Grime crew push a brand-new sound that combines R&B and Grime with positive lyrics.

'The quality’s really, really strong. There’s a lot of amazing artists out there. To be a star and to really, really make it in the music industry there’s so many other elements than having a really good song, you’ve got to be original these days. You may not think it when you’re looking through the pop charts. To really stand out you have to be offering something different and what ‘Rhythm n Grime did is they Rhyme, but they brought a lot of soul to it and that’s important. I’ve never heard a grime track that’s touched me. Me and Tony, who’s the other judge, both said the same thing.'